By Bart Neus, Visit Flanders
In a previous blog post on “Building the European Tourism Competence Centre: Institutions’ Role in the Success of the Project”, we outlined how the European Competence Centre actively involves EU tourism stakeholders to ensure that the Centre meetsthe needs and requirements ofDMOs and SMEs operating in diverse contexts and facing numerous challenges. A first approach towards gathering these needs was a European-wide survey, which was also introduced in an earlier blog post on the D3HUB website.
The D3HUB consortium actively participates in international workshops and conferences to enhance the Competence Centre’s relevance and its integration within the existing European tourism ecosystem. One such participation took place in Vienna on 12-13 September, during the 19th TourMIS Users’ Workshop and International Seminar on Sustainable Tourism Indicators: Data -Driven Strategies for Destinations. Led by the European Travel Commission, D3HUB shared insights with experts from organisations including UN Tourism, OECD – OCDE, the European Commission, Turismo Andaluz, Statistics Austria, Visit Finland, Turismo de Portugal, Murmuration, as well as a broad representation of European DMOs.
During the conference, D3HUB members organised an interactive session to collect valuable user input and highlight key calls to action for the project. Adopting a human spectrogram icebreaker, participants were presented with four binary questions and invited to “vote with their feet” by moving towards the statement they most agreed with. These questions were:
- Do you think that destinations should become smarter and more data-driven than today? (Yes / No)
- Do you feel that you have all the skills needed to make your destination smarter and more data-driven? (Yes absolutely / More skills needed)
- Do you find a European Competence Centre for data-driven tourism destinations a good idea? (Yes absolutely / I am sceptical)
- What should a European Competence Centre for data-driven tourism destinations provide? (Data / Expertise)
The first two questions were answered almost anonymously, with everyone agreeing that destinations should become smarter and more data-driven and that more skills are needed in this regard. The final two questions gave room for more divergent opinions and fruitful discussion. While a majority saw the value of a European Competence Centre, there was some scepticism due to previous experiences with promising propositions that ultimately generated little impact. An important aspect will therefore be the creation of synergies with existing organisations and data projects to maximise potential and use resources efficiently. A key need identified was the provision of best practice overviews and a catalogue of systems and resources, with most participants agreeing that there is already significant data available, but this data is often not used to its fullest potential due to a lack of expertise. Thus, peer-learning and capacity-building data management and interpretation was considered highly relevant.
To further ensure the momentum of collaboration is maintained, participants were then given a brief overview of the main objectives of D3HUB along with a relevant timeline. The latter particularly highlighted the call for pilot participants to be opened by October 14, 2024, briefly outlining the expectations of these pilots and their organisation as a peer-learning approach around four relevant topics.